Wednesday, June 25, 2014

A wise man taught me that there can be
no rape in a system that preaches, “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs”.

Under this doctrine if someone
requires sexual gratification and another can provide it, they must. There is no ethical barrier to prevent the
needy one from helping himself to that which placates his cravings. Need justifies taking.

The story is a little different in
China. Because of their one child policy,
women are forcibly
violated by the abortionist. The
Chinese government reports that over 335 million children have been aborted
between 1980 when the policy was instituted and March 2013 when they released
the count. If you are pro-life, this is genocide
of unimaginable proportions. If you are
pro-choice, where is the choice?

Like many an ill conceived
collectivist scheme, the One Child Policy has engendered unforeseen
consequences. Among them is the shortage
of young people to provide for aging parents and grandparents. This is called the 4-2-1 problem (4
grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child to care for them).

Collectivism is any governmentally coercive
system that places the claims of society above the rights of the
individual. It goes by many names
including socialism, communism, fascism, nationalism and tribalism. Of course the needs and “claims of society”
are determined by a small cadre of ruling elites. Collectivism is always about the rule of man
as opposed to the rule of principle or law.

Self ownership is a foundational principle
of American ordered liberty. Self
ownership is anathema to statists who consider individuals to be nothing more
than cogs in the machine, grist in the mill.

Although collectivism in the U.S. has
not yet reached the brutal excesses of the aforementioned dictatorships, it is
slowly creeping up on us. We have
drifted far from our founding principles.

Tax Freedom Day
is that day when the average American ceases to work to pay taxes and begins to
work for the benefit of himself and his household. At the beginning of the last
century that day fell on January 22 or about 6% into the year. In 2014, that date has moved back to April 13
or 29% of the year. That tells us that
Americans are compelled, enslaved if you will, to work 3.5 months per year to
provide their government with money to transfer to favored clientele. Still, the State is growing ever bolder as it
tries using legislation to nullify religious freedom via the HHS Mandate.

Of greater concern is the way that
American elites use the subtle theft of monetary expansion to finance wars. The advent of the Federal Reserve, over a
century ago, has empowered our leaders wage endless wars from 1914 onward
killing millions worldwide.

The State always tends towards
collectivism and to aggregate more power to itself. It will extort resources from the disenfranchised
many for the benefit of favored few. If
you not numbered among the State’s elect, rest assured that you will be screwed
financially, sexually or, perhaps, for good.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

This just in! You read it here first
on the 2 Percent Blog.

The Washington Redskins have settled
their team name controversy with the federal government. Effective immediately, Washington’s NFL team
will be known as the Washington Elites.

A series of new rules have been implemented
that befit The Elites stature as the team representing our nation’s capital. Washington lawmakers, the President and the
NFL have agreed to the following rulebook revisions:

1.The
Elites will be enabled to appropriate a portion of the revenue of every other
team in the league. That amount will
determined by the Elites’ Board of trustees.
The Elites will also be empowered to audit the books of other teams in
order to ensure that they in compliance with their revenue sharing obligations.

2.Should
they fall behind in a game, or be in jeopardy of falling behind, the Elites
will be allowed to print their own points.

3.The
Elites will be allowed to indefinitely detain players or coaches of opposing
teams who they judge to be threats.

4.The
Elites will be allowed to monitor discussions in the opponents’ locker room.

5.They
will also be allowed to listen in on opponents’ phone conversations between the
upstairs coaching box and the field.

6.They
will be permitted to fly surveillance drones over the opposing team’s huddle

7.They
will be enabled to conduct random drug tests on any opposing player at any time
before, during or after the game; and to suspend said player if he is in
violation of the Elites’ guidelines.

8.The Elites
will be able to conscript any players or coaches that they so desire into their
service. Should a player or coach refuse
service with the Elites, refer to item #3.

9.The
Elite’s will be allowed to appoint their own Refereeing Crew and Replay Review
Officials.

10.The
Elites will be allowed to change the rules of the game at any time.

The White House, The NFL and the
Elites management released a joint statement saying that this settlement represents
and “an important step forward for the league and for football fans everywhere”.

In a related story, The Washington
Nationals, Capitols and Wizards are in closed door meetings with Congressional
leaders and White House representatives seeking similar deals in their
respective sports.

Friday, June 20, 2014

One of my family's more amusing anecdotes is the time that my
father-in-law met Governor, now Senator, Tom Carper of Delaware.

My wife's dad, Dom Travaglini, is simple and straightforward
guy. He grew up poor in small mountain
village in Italy among the ravages of World War II. The town school offered only three grades so
Dom went to work at a young age doing all the simple things that one needs to
do in a backwater town just to survive.

As a teenager, Dom took his practical skills with him to
Australia where he went to seek work as a laborer. He worked in the Outback for three years
sending regular payments back home to his mom.
In time he made his way to America, met a girl, married, built a
beautiful home and saw both of his kids through college. All this with a third grade education, strong
back and hands and hard learned stone mason skills.

This brings us to the legendary
meeting with Carper.

Dom was repairing a backyard wall in
and affluent neighborhood. The next door
neighbor leaned over the fence, offered his hand and introduced himself. “Tom Carper, governor”. Unfazed and unimpressed, Dom accepted the
handshake and replied, “Dom Travaglini, concrete.”

Of course, the family joke is that immigrant,
country bumpkin, Dom, failed to show the requisite deference to his social “superior”. And it was certainly unintentional. Dom does not have a conniving bone in his
body.

But really, is Dom’s station in life,
as a humble tradesman, inferior to that of a Governor or a Senator? I say not.
In fact, I assert that he is far superior.

Dom has spent his entire adult life
making people’s live better by building homes, walls, steps and sidewalks for
them. Carper, the career politician, has
produced little or nothing of value for his fellow man. Rather, he has spent his lifetime taxing,
licensing and regulating productive people like Dom who make his life at the
public trough possible.

In fact, Carper’s family should be
laughing that he had the temerity to elevate himself to the station of a
productive citizen like Dom.

Monday, June 16, 2014

We often think of immigration in terms
mature full grown adults seeking a better life.
That certainly makes it easier to strike a more strident stand regarding
legalities and remedies. The thought of repatriating
callow youths back to dysfunctional homelands seems cruel.

Freedom of movement is a fundamental
libertarian principle. It is an extension
of free market principles. People can and will relocate to where prospects for
a good life a rosier. When it comes to adult immigration, the Cato
Institute argues
that the net benefit of immigration is positive. Does their argument hold true in the case of
unaccompanied children? Perhaps not.

This brings to mind Milton
Friedman’s incisive observation that "It's just obvious you can't have
free immigration and a welfare state."

In the case of adults, it can be
argued that many, if not most, are honest, hard workers who are seeking
remunerative opportunities. Children,
however, are certainly going to become wards of the taxpayers. The kids will need to be fed, clothed,
sheltered, educated and given medical care.
To afford this, federal, state and local governments will impose an
unelected and therefore, un-libertarian, burden on their citizens.

Anyone who saw the classic DePlama /
Pacino Scarface will recall that
the film’s premise was that Castro was deporting his social problems to the
U.S. Fidel emptied his prisons and
asylums and set these unwanted souls adrift in the Atlantic, headed for Miami. This closely adheres to the libertarian definition
of pollution. That is, dumping your
refuse on another person’s property.

In a sense, Mexico and Central American
nations are doing the same thing. They
are dumping their social ills onto our soil. The remedy, I believe, is to
attack the dumpers, not the dumpees.

The solution lies in an idea that the
Obama administration put forward in the early days of the Russian incursion into
Ukraine. Impound the assets of those
responsible for creating the problem.

Let’s start by allowing all who are
not known disease carriers or criminals into the U.S. Then we ask the good old IRS to track the net
monetary contribution that each individual immigrant has made to his community.
The IRS will also track whatever cost
burdens that said immigrant has placed upon his host community. If the contributions exceed the costs, no problemo!
Everybody wins.

If the cost to maintain the immigrant individual
and / or his family exceeds his contributions, someone must be made to
pay. This is where the asset freezing comes
in.

The U.S. will simply put a lien on the
U.S. based financial assets of the originating government, its corporations and
its leading citizens. Funds from these
accounts will be used to reimburse American taxpayers for the expense of maintaining
that country’s citizens while they were guests in the U.S.A.

This is the Immigration Tariff. It is a tariff that is libertarian because it
imposes costs on those who create the immigration problem. I am sure that once
those nations that dump their social ills on America are forced to pay a price,
they will make needed reforms to retain their most vulnerable countrymen.

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Saturday, June 14, 2014

Unlike Will Rogers,
I have met a number of men who I did not like.
Perhaps Will did not get out much.

I’ve never met Donald Sterling but I get it. He’s a jerk.
He’s said some nasty and objectionable things.

Nonetheless Donald Sterling, as an NBA owner, has run a
business that has turned dozens of African Americans into millionaires. Despite what he may or may not really feel
about people of African ancestry, he realizes that to run a credible basketball
enterprise he must employ top notch talent.
In the basketball business that talent is overwhelmingly Black. Sir Charles is correct when he says that the NBA “is a Black league”.

Donald’s case is a sterling example of Adam Smith’s
“invisible hand”. By selfishly pursuing
his own interest, Sterling inadvertently helped many Black men become
rich. He wasn’t dumb enough to staff his
roster with a bunch of suckey white stiffs.
Smith discovered that while an individual strives for his own enrichment,

"He generally neither
intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it
... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases,
led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By
pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

Let’s consider the reverse situation. The apparatchiks of the American welfare
state have lots of warm and fuzzy things to say about minorities. Yet nearly fifty years ago the liberal
Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sounded the alarms that the welfare
system was destroying African American families and communities. And even under the auspices of America’s
first Black President, the fortunes of Americans have continued to erode. This was forcefully
pointed out NAACP president, Benjamin Jealous. Nearly 250 years ago Smith saw that
government meddling caused nothing but hardship. “I have never known much good done by those
who affected to trade
for the public good."

This does not excuse Sterling’s gaffs. However, it begs the question of who would
you prefer to have in your corner – the a-hole who makes you millions or the
nice guy who bankrupts you?

Milton Friedman nailed
it when he wrote that, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and
programs by their intentions rather than their results.” Our supposedly compassionate welfare state
only aggravates the plight of the economic underclass. In addition is stokes
resentment among taxpayers and recipients alike.

The market brings people together who
may not like each other. However they
soon learn to cooperate and make exchanges for mutual benefit.

We can never know what is in a man’s
soul. That’s between him and his Maker
or his shrink. However, we do know that
the free market rewards those who serve their neighbors well and who do the
best job of creating satisfaction for customers.

A nation of happy consumers and
prosperous pleasers is good enough for me.
To return to Mr. Smith, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher
the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
their own interest.”

Unlike Will Rogers, these merchants
need not like us nor we them. Businesses
sell to us because they want our money.
We give them money because we want meat, bread and brewskies.

The collectivist, however, wants much more
than burgers, bread and brew. He wants your
heart, you mind and your soul. He cares little
for your material well being.

Recognition of our interdependence is
what enables flawed, limited and even stupid men, such as this writer, and
women to cooperate freely and prosper harmoniously.

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Friday, June 6, 2014

Occasionally it helps to suspend the prejudices of belief
and unbelief to see what insights the ancient scriptures may offer on
contemporary concerns. In this instance,
the topic is work.

Human work, or “toil” as it is referred to in my Bible, is
first mentioned when God ejects Adam and Eve from the Garden. “Through painful toil you will eat…..By the sweat
of your brow you will eat your food until
you return to the ground”.(NIV)

Here is the story up until that moment. Adam and Eve are new to the world. They are essentially children in adult
bodies. Today we call them
adolescents. Like most adolescents, they
have no clue. They live in a home that
their Father provided, eat his food, swim in his ponds and play with his
animals.

Upon eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, they were
rudely thrust into adulthood and sent out into the harsh world to work at jobs
for which they were ill prepared.

Thus it is embedded in our deepest traditions to regard work
as a curse.

Austrian economists call this the “disutility of labor”. Put quite simply, “Men prefer the absence of
labor, i.e., leisure, to labor, or as the economists put it: they attach disutility
to labor…….They are eager to stop working at the point at which the mediate
gratification expected no longer outweighs the disutility involved in the
performance of additional work.” (Mises: Human Action).

Returning to Scripture for a moment, the actual word “work” first
appears at the beginning of Genesis 2 when God, “rested from all the work he had done in creation”. In this sense, work is a blessing and not a
curse. Work need not always be tedious
toil. Rather, it can be rewarding participation
in the continuing process of creation.

When God expelled the first couple from Paradise, he did not
leave them helpless. They still had their arms, legs, hands and feet. They still had “dominion” over the things of
nature. Most importantly, they retained
their brains, their ability to reason. The
Creator never said that his children should remain poor and miserable. Mankind could mix his hard work and reason
with the abundant resources of this world to lift himself out of destitution
and to create prosperity, peace and abundance.
This is the essence of “production”.

Murray Rothbard
observes that, “Power over nature is the sort of power on which civilization
must be built; the record of man's history is the record of the advance or
attempted advance of that power.”

Mankind’s ability to sublimate nature to his own ends stems
from his power to think and reason. Ayn
Rand states that “The action required to sustain human life is primarily
intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and
produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem
of survival.”

A great many of our world’s problems, however; stem from the
fact that so few people link work with production. Those who see labor as purely a curse will
often demand compensation for their toil that exceeds their production. They think that their pay is merely
compensation for suffering drudgery, not a reflection of value created for
others. This lies at the heart of the
minimum wage fallacy.

And though God may have given mankind dominion over nature,
he never gave one man or women dominion over another. All God’s children are free and equal in his
eyes as our Declaration of Independence asserts. Yet there are those who prefer a shortcut to
abundance by attaining power over others as opposed to power over nature.

Rothbard explains: “Power over men, on the other hand, does
not raise the general standard of living or promote the satisfactions of all,
as does power over nature. By its very essence, only some men in society can
wield power over men. Where power over man exists, some must be the powerful,
and others must be objects of power….. Power of one man over another cannot
contribute to the advance of mankind; it can only bring about a society in
which plunder has replaced production”.

This is the mode of the corporatist welfare / warfare state
that expropriates lawful productivity for the benefit of elites and their clientele. This is a model for a society that is
unstable and unsustainable

The legal plunder of the all powerful state threatens to
tear down the American Dream that was built upon respect for individual liberty
and property rights. It portends a
return to the harsh days of humanity’s first parents who were sentenced to a
life of hardship on account of their hubris.

In the following graphic, Professor Rothbard neatly sums up
the differences between the ways of peace, liberty and productivity (The Market
Principle) versus the ways of violence and legalized plunder (The Hegemonic
Principle).